


The Hunt of the Red Bear

by johnjeepxj



Category: Original Fiction - Fandom
Genre: Animal Attack, Bear Attack, Cancer, Death, Family, Gen, Love, Native American, Resurrection, Supernatural Elements, Thriller, cancer free
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 11:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8622868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnjeepxj/pseuds/johnjeepxj





	

The rain was still on the fourth watch, and sunlight broke through the murky cloud cover, shortly after sunrise. Beams of light streak across the sky. A sight such as this with tremendous beauty and power injects any lowly mortal with a sense of inferiority. Causes any conscious being to remember he is made of dust, that anyone is susceptible to shortcomings, frailties and will need a helping hand once in a while.  
Its Sunday, and Chuck Adams lays in his bed thinking about his youngest daughter Joy. She has been asking to go to visit the park to feed the birds. This fact is a bit shocking, because the day before, Joy and her grandfather spent the evening watching Alfred Hitchcock 's The Birds. That's comparable to someone watching Stephen King's IT, about a demon clown in pursuit of frighten children, and then going to a support group meeting for unemployed clowns, confessing how they failed their dreams of kidnapping a baby for the purpose of making it it's meal. It is unclear what's on her mind, but until more is understood, no Hitchcock movies for her. As he rides this train of thought he concluded for the time being he will have the kitchen knives will be under lock and key, and possibly purchasing a see-through shower curtain wouldn't hurt.  
It has been a constant battle attempting to convince himself the possibility she's just going through a phase, but worst case scenarios always worm themselves to the forefront. Like a bovine locked in a perpetual cycle of cud chewing, except in his case, after each time the thought regurgitates itself it leaves his face contorted. After staring at the ceiling for several long minutes, he drags himself out of bed and gets dressed, making sure he straps on his hiking boots. Two days of rain will do some damage to the park trails. He heads to the kitchen to make a quick breakfast for the girls. Always opting for the shortest possible route to accomplish a task. The absence of the rain drumming on the house and the noise coming from the kitchen got Joy out of bed, except for Sammy, her sister was always a heavy sleeper. Especially, now a days since her commencement of chemotherapy , she's been doing a lot more resting.

“Daddy, what's for breakfast?” Joy said while moving her eye boogers out of the way.  
Chuck raises an eyebrow and pauses before responding

“Good morning, How are you feeling?”

“Oh. Good morning Daddy. I feel like having some banana pancakes.”, she said, giving him a cheesy smile, like a greasy salesman trying to close a deal.

He stares down to her and said, “You are your mother's daughter.” He turns around and begins to dig for the electric skillet and other things to make pancakes.

For a seven year old, Joy can do plenty of things without being told, and with very little supervision. She was already dressed in warm clothes, and her hair in a ponytail. By the time he places the pancakes in front of her, Sammy walked out of the bedroom, still in pajamas and wearing her beanie.

“Good morning, sweetie. How are you?”, Chuck said.

“Morning Dad. I'm just peachy.”, Sammy said. She sits in a chair at the table, and stabs at a pancake from the stack.

“Sam, you think you'll OK on your own for a hour? I want to take your sister to Tuketu Park”

“Yeah. I'll be ok. Besides, I think she has a case of cabin fever, and she's driving me crazy.”, she said.

The walk started out uneventful, and the streets were a bit deserted, other than a few neighbors clearing tree branches from their lawns. When we were a block away from the park, we saw Larry outside his house stuffing tree branches and debris into the trash can. Larry spots them on the sidewalk approaching him and his face lights up.

“Hey Chuck! Guess what happened?” Larry asked.

“What?” ,trying not to show his annoyance that he opened a conversation that way.

“You remember my cousin John?”

“The cop?”

“Yeah. He was dispatched to Rolling Meadows, that housing development they are making on the other side of the hill.”, he points to the hill sitting behind their neighborhood. “Nothing is built, yet, they're just moving dirt around with earth movers. Well, John told me there was a disturbance there yesterday, and when he went over to check it out, he found the security guard knocked unconscious. He says something attacked him.”

“Something? You mean someone.”, Chuck said while Joy inched closer to him.

“No”, he said while shaking his head. ”John found tracks leading to and from the guard. It was raining pretty hard, but he still saw what was left of the tracks. So, he followed tracks to the base of the hill, where they began. He noticed the rain had uncovered some kind of Indian burial ground, and there was a empty gave with signs something had clawed itself out.”

“Daddy, make him stop.” Joy said while tugging at his coat sleeve, and with fright in her eyes.

“It's ok sweetie. Mr. Bowen is kidding, he likes telling his wild stories. It's the same stories he tells around the campfire.”, he turns to meet Larry's eyes, “ Right, Larry?”

Larry's body language shifted, and it began expressing embarrassment, and other discomforts, due to stuffing his foot in his mouth.

“Oh yeah, sweetie. My stories can get a little crazy. I joke with your daddy like that all the time. Sorry for scaring you.” Larry said.

She nodded at Larry, but still not letting her grip slip around his arm. They continued their walk to the park, and the silence in the neighborhood was eerie, and disturbingly apparent. As if every living creature heard Larry's story, and were scared silent. The few neighbors that were out cleaning and starting the day, were now gone. He looks back to Larry's front lawn where he was cleaning, but he was nowhere in sight, just the trashcan sitting alone with it's lid on the ground.

 

They round the corner, and cross the street to the park, which it's placed at the end of the row of houses, and butts up against the hill with the proposed housing development, and the newly discovered Indian graveyard. The west side of the park faces the neighborhood, and haunted hill with woods wrapping the north side and the road to the south.

Joy lets go of her Dad's hand and grabs the pieces of bread they brought from the house for the birds. She runs on the wet grass, searching for any signs of the flying animals, but sees none. The surrounding area is deserted of any wild life. After several longs seconds of standing on the turf unsure what to do. Then there was a slight flutter of feathered wings in the thick of the trees. Chuck strains to focus on the dark areas of the woods against the glare of the morning sunlight. He manages to see birds perched on the every inch of tree branch and limb. The woods appear deathly dark and a chill sneaks up his back. Every raven from a hundred miles stationed themselves there like a thick black cloak, casting a much darker shadow on to the park.

“Daddy? Do bears eat people?” asked Joy nervously, so Chuck to decided to lie.

“Nah sweetie. They're just looking for a picnic basket to make a sandwich. Why do you ask?”

He turns to where she pointed to and there was the biggest bear ever to venture these parts, and it was staring at Chuck and Joy, never blinking. They both stood on the grass, frozen stiff, uncertain on what to do. Subsequently, there was a loud crack and a snort behind them. Chuck whips his head around and was startled by the sight of another bear, this one much closer to them. He looks to the first bear but he was gone, then made a quick scan around area making sure it wasn't blending into the background, but there was nothing. He was just gone.

They focus on the second bear, and just like the other one, it's gaze unrelenting, wide eyed, and unblinking, teeth dripping red from a fresh kill. Starring into them, not with drive, but with purpose, and a certain nakedness fell upon him, and he realized he was going to be driven hard and put away wet by his own mortality. Chuck slowly grabs Joy's arm, and steps away, walking backwards from the beast, oddly enough, could have been an identical twin to the first bear. Their steps gradually grew longer in stride, and the pause between them shrunk smaller, and his grip tighter on her arm. Chuck's heart raced so hard the beats were deafening in his ears, and his breathing was becoming erratic. Panic began to set in. It took all his strength to will himself to focus on what's priority and to accept the reality of the situation. Best case scenario, he thinks to himself, Joy will live if he heaves her over a fence into someone's backyard and he will be man-jerky to this bear.

In a flash he hoists Joy's small frame across his shoulder, turned toward the direction of the houses and shoot for the nearest home. Chuck pumped his legs as fast as he could across the grass, the longest fifty yards, and time slowed to an agonizing crawl. Chuck could not believe they neared the fence, knowing well enough bears are faster than any human on foot. This thought made him more aware, and tried to pinpoint the beast's location, when he no longer heard the bear's heavy breathing, and the sound of the sloshy grass under its paws, ceased. The effort needed to turn around and check on the bear was too much for Chuck.

He readied Joy to hoist over the fence, and a slight relief came over him, only for it to be stomped out, when he spied a large brown furry figure through the spaces between the wooded slants of the fence. It wasn't a dog, too large for that, it was another bear. Chuck was horror-stricken. It turns it's head slightly to allow one of it's eyes to get sight of them through the slants, and it gave out a heart-stopping roar, spraying saliva, and exposing it's red stained teeth. They stood there frozen stiff, like a pillar of salt. Joy's wails dragged her dad out of his trance. He side steps along the fence and twists around in every direction looking for the pursuing bear, only to come up empty. He didn't waste any time, and made a split-second decision to sprint down the street to their house, with Joy in his arms.  
They arrived at the house, and still running on adrenaline, Chuck cried out for Sammy, but she was nowhere to be found. He peers out the window, and spots lump of flesh with a tattered remains of Sammy's pajamas. Chuck's heart stops, and lungs refused to expand. He darts outside, not caring if the bloodthirsty beast was still in the area. The gruesome scene breaks him, the pain bores to the core of his being. He drops to his knees and hopelessly slumps his shoulders. She was beyond saving. The bloody sight brands itself onto his memory, he will be eternally herded by fear and failure. 

The following ten hours developed into a blur for Chuck. Officers and agents from a number of city and county departments filed into the house, and studied the scene. People from the neighborhood came to give comfort. Family members came, and cried with them. And Joy was stone-faced, nothing but a blank stare.

It was only a couple hours since the last of the people have left when Officer Bowen pulled into the driveway. He walked up to the front door crestfallen. The look of a man bearing bad news to a family that suffered enough already.

Chuck opens the front door, “Hey Officer Bowen”.

“Mr. Adams, I was informed by the chief coroner that your daughter's body has gone missing. We are currently looking through video surveillance...”

“What do you mean her body is missing!?? You lost her?” Chuck halted his rebuke. Screams from the kitchen cause them to jump.

Both men ran to the kitchen, and caught Joy looking out the window, with terror in her eyes. The three of them look out into backyard, and next to the opened gate, leading to haunted hill, stood the bear. Chuck turns to John, glances down to his sidearm and said, “Kill that thing!”

Stepping into the backyard, John draws his weapon, but he halts, and freezes. Both men are shocked at the sight next to the bear, standing with such calm, almost with a commanding presence. Like a pet owner standing next to her obedient dog. She smiles knowingly and said, “Hi Dad.”. 

Her skin glowed, and signs of the attacked have all but vanished. It was Sammy, his Samantha. Her presence emanated a robust vigor even the top athletes would envy. The chemotherapy had left Samantha without her long beautiful hair, but now, standing in front of her family, feeling stronger than ever, she runs her hand through her long locks. She smiles and tears of pure happiness stream down her cheeks.

“Sam!??”, Chuck said, struggling to force the words out, and barely audible. 

“Yeah. It's me Dad.” she replied.

They embraced each other tightly, and wept together. Chuck could not believe this reality, no matter how much he wanted it to be true. He pulls away from his daughter, wipes his eyes clear of tears, and notices the beast was gone. In it's place was a small pile of pine needles and earth. 

“Dad.”, Chuck turns to face her and she continued, “I'm healed. He... or It made me better.” 

“Wait. You mean the bear?”,he asked

“Yes, the bear. It said my body was poisoned and needed to be cleanse. That's why he did what he did..”

Chuck could not understand the whole situation, but he didn't have to, nor did he want to. All that was important to him were his two girls, knowing they are safe. He was aware that life should not be taken for granted, he knew that for years, but if this experience taught him anything, it is that one may cherish every moment of life, one can't go on without a helping hand.  
Several doctor visits confirmed what they already knew about Sam's condition. She was cancer free. 

 

THE END.


End file.
